New York Times

Whatever You Think of Putin, You Should Understand How Russia Thinks

“Rarely Does A Monthly Report On The United States Job Market Look So Terrific On The Surface While Being So Disappointing Underneath”

It appears the status quo may be finally making its moves to getting control over the heretofore free and open internet. As we and many others have noted previously, the internet is one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever devised. It frees information in a way that was simply unimaginable decades ago and empowers each of us to be as informed or uninformed as we desire. Just last week, we mused, that in so-called “first world” countries like the U.S. the illusion of freedom must be maintained even as civil liberties are eroded. Thus censorship must be administered surreptitiously and slowly. The following plan to implement an “Internet ID” will initially only be rolled out as a pilot program in two states (Michigan and Pennsylvania), and will only deal with government services. That said, we can see where all of this is ultimately headed, and the program, called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, should be monitored closely going forward.

The joint naval drill is another example of the growing military, economic and political ties between China and Russia.

Journalism and investment research have a lot in common, notes ConvergEx's Nick Colas; after all, both essentially ask the customer to freely part with three scarce resources: time, attention and money. It’s been a tough decade or two for both the newsroom and the research department in that effort, but at least one prominent venture capitalist, Marc Andreessen, thinks there is a future for the news business, however, due to a rising middle class in emerging markets and mobile Internet distribution. While this audience may not (yet/ever) be hankering to read Buy-Sell-Hold reports on their smartphones, Andreessen’s recently published 8-fold strategy for journalism has lessons for investment research as well. The big takeaway: sell-side research needs to change a lot – and quickly - to survive as anything more than an advertising vehicle for brokerage firms.

Two very important cases related to the 4th Amendment protection of cellphone data went before the Supreme Court yesterday. At issue here is whether or not police can search someone’s cellphone upon arrest. As usual, the Obama administration’s Justice Department is arguing against the citizenry, and in favor of the (police) state. Oh yeah, destroy privacy rights for 320 million people because a phone could potentially trigger a bomb. You can’t get much more stupid and pathetic than that argument.

It’s one thing to read an academic study showing how cancerous the political system is, it’s quite another to hear a description of how things work from one of the biggest crony weapons of mass societal destruction himself, Mr. Larry Summers..."I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders." Until the status quo gets the boot, this nation will continue to decline. Forget reforms, the entire status quo needs to be tossed aside once and for all. The insiders must be turned into outsiders.

The debate over Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century is as dumb as every other issue-set in the public arena these days - a product of failed mental models, historical blindness, hubris, and wishful thinking... We doubt that the Warren Buffets and Jamie Dimons of the world will see their wealth confiscated via some new policy of the Internal Revenue Service - e.g. the proposed “tax on wealth.” Rather, its more likely that they’ll be strung up on lampposts or dragged over three miles of pavement behind their own limousines. After all, the second leading delusion in our culture these days, after the wish for a something-for-nothing magic energy rescue remedy, is the idea that we can politically organize our way out of the epochal predicament of civilization that we face. Piketty just feeds that secondary delusion.

The US State Department announced the launch of its third annual "Free the Press" campaign today, which will purportedly highlight "journalists or media outlets that are censored, attacked, threatened, or otherwise oppressed because of their reporting." A noble mission for sure. But maybe they should kick off the campaign by criticizing their own Justice Department, which on the very same day, has asked the Supreme Court to help them force Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter James Risen into jail.

The concept of “net neutrality” is not an easy one to wrap your head around. Particularly if you aren’t an expert in how the internet works and if you don’t work for an ISP (internet service provider). In fact, we think that lobbyists and special interest groups make the concept intentionally difficult and convoluted so that the average person’s eyes glaze over and they move on to the next topic. We are by no means an expert in this area; however, in this post we will try to explain in as simple terms as possible what “net neutrality” means and what is at risk with the latest FCC proposal. We also highlight a wide variety of articles on the subject, so we hope this post can serve as a one-stop-shop on the issue. In a nutshell, the latest rules from the FCC is truly the American way of censorship

The US middle class, well on its way to extinction, just took out the first and most critical  milestone, to wit - the US middle class is no longer the world's richest. And yes, "it's all downhill from here."

Presented with no comment... "Today, Bundy revealed himself to be a hateful racist... Bundy has endangered the lives of innocent women and children... it is unacceptable for individuals to use violence or the threat of violence to advance their radical views."

For most of Canada's existence, it has been regarded as the weak neighbor to the north by most Americans.  Well, that has changed dramatically over the past decade or so.  Back in the year 2000, middle class Canadians were earning much less than middle class Americans, but since then there has been a dramatic shift.  At this point, middle class Canadians are actually earning more than middle class Americans are.  The Canadian economy has been booming thanks to a rapidly growing oil industry, and meanwhile the U.S. middle class has been steadily shrinking.  If current trends continue, a whole bunch of other countries are going to start passing us too.  The era of the "great U.S. middle class" is rapidly coming to a bitter end.

"I will pursue Herbalife to the end of the earth," is the threat Bill Ackman made and the hedge fund manager acknowledges spending more than $20 million in a lobbying and media campaign against the health product company. But on the heels of his non-front-running non-insider-trading transactions in the Allergan deal, details about the Herbalife whistleblower's "deal" raise more questions about ethics. Giovanni Bohorquez has now been named as Ackman's inside-man and the $3.6 million secret deal he will receive for spilling inside information about Herbalife's actions is raising significant questions about conflicts of interest. Having flatly denied being paid, "I'm not getting any benefit," during an on-camera ABC interview, ABC now reveals that Ackman agreed to the deal after Bohorquez balked at going public because he feared his disclosures could make it difficult for him to find work at an executive level. It seems $3.6 million promptly relieved any fears of not being able to get a job.

“Flash Boys” is a book written for Hollywood instead of the history books or policy makers.  Stay tuned for the movie.